(RIP)12wk old bun with runny poos

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Thank you guys so much for the posts and information!

I spent most of the evening giving him simethicone. He seems to love how it tastes but wants to fight me every step of the way, haha. After an hour of failed burritos, I finally flipped him on his back in my lap and massaged his belly for a little while. He seemed to like it and went into the bunny trance. I decided since no other method was working for us, I'd try to slowly drop a drop at a time on the front of his mouth. I was rewarded by him licking it off his lips. :3 He took most of the 1ml like this, some of it got smeared when he freaked out the first time so a little went to waste. Not bad, though!

However, I do have one thing to mark off my bucket list now. The first time I tried to drop a lot into his mouth through the gap behind his teeth while he was flipped, he peed ALL OVER me, haha. The whole front of my shirt was wet, he was wet, and he SOMEHOW peed upward and to the left on my upper arm furthest from him. He's nothing if not talented, it seems!

He's been nibbling more, though is still a little "meh". Even if its just pellets (he has lots of hay, he just hasn't gotten interested in it yet, it seems...), I'm grateful he's eating at all. If I can get him eager enough to eat and his poops kinda get sorted out, I'll be ecstatic. This little guy has worried me so much!! I haven't been sleeping well due to nightmares and I have a stress headache all the time. It'll be a huge relief in every measure of the word when he's better. I nearly started crying when he started eating a couple pellets this evening! Last night I was almost sure he wasn't going to make it. But now I think he's fighting the stasis. :) As long as he's willing to fight, so am I.

Also I've seen on a lot of things that they suggest vanilla extract, apple juice, etc to encourage water intake. Is he too young to do that with? I assume he is because I haven't even started him on veggies (will be soon for extra fiber since he seems to abhor hay, hoping a switch to alfalfa will help that too) but I wanted to know anyways. I'm just worried he's not getting enough or something. Might even help if I could mix some of the simethicone up with apple juice - though he seems to like the medicine. Its the dropper that terrifies him LOL. I tried boiling some water and dipping the tip in it so it was warm to the touch as compared to cold, but that didn't give it many brownie points in his book...

And I think the heat caused his stasis, too. Heidi is fine so I'm pretty sure its not coccidia. Since I fed them both at the same time, she would have come down with it, too, and he'd have gotten sick much sooner. I was worried about that diagnosis this morning... I also don't think the clovers did it but I'm still going to cut them out until he's doing 110% better. He's gotten pretty bonded to me over the past couple days so I don't think the treat is needed much now anyways. xP I'll start him on some cilantro after he's feeling better and see where that takes us. :) Might start banana after that so I can have something he will hopefully like to fall back on when medicating gets difficult.

Again, thank you all so much thus far. I'm sorry if I ask so many questions and am generally annoying. Updating this thread kinda keeps me sane, haha. All my waking hours are going to this little guy; if I'm not directly touching him, my ears are perked for hearing him eating/chewing/moving around.
 
generally you don't need shampoo to bathe a rabbit butt. just wash it off and they will take care of the rest.

Tricks to getting a rabbit to eat hay.

Start them on plain regular grass.
Get them eating plain regular grass.
then mix in some other grass types (white clover, dandelion, parsley (yeah,not a grass but good for them). Just so you have a nice mix. Gets him used to different forages.
Pick some grass that is somewhat dry but not all dry. Just so there this different feel/smell.
THEN mix it all up... some mixed grass with some hay. Make sure its nice plain hay. Not too much, just some.
And overtime of mixing it up he'll come to eat some hay.

I've done this MANY times with purchased breeding stock that has NEVER been exposed to hay. it works a charm. :)
 
How is your bunny doing today? Is he still having mushy poop?

I have a rabbit that when I first got him, wouldn't eat hay. I ended up getting some plain timothy/alfalfa hay pellets at the feed store and started feeding him some of those each day, as he liked them and would eat them. I would also keep a small amount of hay in his cage all of the time, and refresh it each day. Gradually he started nibbling on it more and more, so that now he is eating hay normally. The hay pellets are a little bit bigger in size than rabbit food, so I don't know if your little guy would have a problem eating them or not. My rabbit, who's about 3 lbs, can eat them just fine.
 
I always refresh his hay and leave tons of it but so far, he just isn't going for it, haha. I don't know if he could eat the larger pellets, he just manages to eat the small ones. My boy is tiny! He usually has to snap them in half to eat them and then it takes him a while to eat his half lol.

Thank you guys for the tips on getting him to eat hay! I'll have to try them soon.

Today has not been a good day. I saw no poops in his carrier (maybe I only imagined he was eating...) and he's still not very interested in eating. He doesn't seem in pain, though. There's no grinding of teeth or anything. My cat has also gone missing. He's THE cat to me; best one I've ever had. He greets me when I come home, he misses me when I'm away, and he is so determined to sleep in my bed at night. When I'm on the computer, he lays on the routers or in the shelf I made for him next to me with a blanket in it. I can't say I've ever had an animal that I could look at, and SEE the love in their eyes until I got him.

Anyways, I'm an even bigger emotional mess right now. I looked all over for Milo, even in my neighborhood, and haven't seen him. Best case scenario, he's hiding in some nook or cranny here that I don't know about. I think we all know what the worst case scenario is. :(
 
So sorry about Milo; I hope that he has returned by now :-(

Just wanted to tell you that it is not a good idea to give any meds or fluids by mouth while you have a rabbit turned over on his back. It is really easy for an animal to aspirate the fluids and get pneumonia.
I know that your bun is really small but I do almost all procedures on my rabbits while they are on the floor. I get down on the floor with them.
Whatever... just keep her right side up :sunshine:
 
He hasn't returned but thank you for your concern! I've made ads all over the internet for my area about him. If he's not back by tomorrow, going to start putting up posters. I have high hopes that he's just somewhere in the house but I honestly don't know where he could be that I can't find him.

Oh no, I had no idea!! Is it still a risk if I'm dropping it a drop at a time on his lips for him to lick off, not placed directly in his mouth? I haven't heard any rattling in his lungs or anything (Milo once breathed in some powder and I could hear rattling, not sure if this is the same logic at play) and I hold him for several moments after medication. How should I be giving him his medicine if not this way? Burrito then sit over him with my legs crossed? The main problem I'm having with him is I can get him IN the burrito but I can't keep him in it. He starts burrowing down in the towel to hide, which is cute but hugely inconvenient.
 
If you're not putting down his throat then you're okay with the way you're doing it. :wink

Having them back into the towel is a bit frustrating...sounds like you could use an extra set of hands if you try it that way again.
 
Sorry for no update yesterday. It was a very emotionally-draining experience yesterday. The person who was going to drive me to the clinic suddenly couldn't take me, so I had no way of taking Totoro to the vet. In the end, I don't think there's anything they could have done for him.

Totoro passed away this morning. Sunday evening, he was doing better. Eating, pooping, peeing, and drinking water like a champ. Monday, he just nosedived. He went back to runny poos, he was lethargic, and barely responsive. I did everything I could possibly do for him in my situation and none of it helped. :( Whereas he was willing to lick up the simethicone, he now wouldn't even bother licking it off - I gave him the whole dose of 1ml and the only way to make him swallow it was to turn him right side up and he'd jerk back into consciousness and swallow. Otherwise, he just let it stay there. I thought maybe he was cold so I got a rice sock and held him for hours trying to warm him up. He seemed to do better then. But he still was lethargic. Very lethargic. When I tried to put him back in the carrier, he just laid wherever I placed him. It was then I knew he probably wasn't going to make it through the night - the non-responsiveness had led me to suspect it but now my worst fears were realized.

We think there may have been something wrong with him, besides the stasis. Something that was present from the breeders and it just flourished. It seems so weird that he was doing better then the following morning he's right on death's doorstep. He was even playing a little Sunday night, flinging toilet paper rolls and even chewing on the toilet paper - which I didn't let him do when I saw him doing it.

I just feel gutted. I feel like I failed him... I wish I had had a way to take him to the vet yesterday. I wish I had money to have taken him SOONER, even. I honestly thought he was going in the right direction Sunday night, but it would seem it was a case of one step forward, fifteen steps back. Poor Totoro was just a baby, he shouldn't have died. :(

RIP My Little Totoro, I wish I could have done more for you. ♥

I'll make a rainbow bridge post for him, even if you guys think I'm a terrible bun owner. I feel like one right now, for sure.
 
I'm so sorry. Runny poo in young rabbits is a very deadly illness. Don't blame yourself--we all do what we are able to for our bunnies.
 
Oh I am so sorry that you lost him but give yourself a break. You did the very best that you could for him. All of us have lost rabbits and it seems like all of us tend to blame ourselves even when it isn't our fault. Rabbits are not easy pets (to say the least)
Now you need to take care of yourself and get some rest !!!

This was not your fault !!
I am so sorry :-(
 
Thank you all for your condolences!

It is still pretty hard to manage. Everywhere I go, I sometimes catch whiffs of this "kitten" smell - that's what Totoro smelled like - and its really, really hard to hold it together. It took ever ounce of my determination to fold up the sheet in my floor that I had set out for him to play on. His water bottle is still unemptied and I put his litterbox in my closet. I wanted to bury it with him but it was going to require a huge hole and we were afraid we'd damage the shrub we placed him under... Sigh.

I contacted his breeder and asked if she'd lost any of the young ones he was in with. We suspect he had a parasite/coccidiosis because of his symptoms... I know the breeder had marked his price down, claimed he was a little small for his age, and then he came home with watery eyes... So I kinda suspect something was wrong all along. I don't hold grudges, though, and I'm not going to blame them. I just wanted to let the breeder know so she could make sure none of her stock was sick, too! I don't want anyone else to go through what I had to go through. He was my perfect idea of a rabbit.

Also, how should one sanitize his old supplies, like his bottle and bowl? I want to put the bowl up (I may be getting a puppy sometime in the following 6~12 months and I'd like to re-use the bowl, more as a sentiment to him than anything) and give Heidi his bottle because the little brat chewed a hole in her's somehow. x_x I'm so used to Tote's face having been so flat he couldn't reach through wire, so I forget she can stick her muzzle through and chew. I give her so many other things but she HAS to chew her bottle, hehe. This is the same rabbit who dumped the entire contents of her litterbox on the first night and threw all her straw out, though, so I can't be too surprised.
 
I think you are a great bunny mommy. From what i read you did everything you could for your little dude and you should be proud of how far you went to treat him, any bunny would be lucky to have you for a mom :) Hugs to you.
 
Thank you guys so much. ♥

The past few days, I realized I tried to do everything I could for my little guy. I just hope he felt that I did too. :)

Thank you all for being so supportive through this entire ordeal. ♥ It taught me that rabbits are so delicate, you can't take even a single day with them for granted. But every day with them is truly wonderful. ♥
 
I'm sorry you lost your bunny. It's heartbreaking when we loose them, but sometimes despite our best efforts there's not a lot we can do, because they are such fragile animals.

Coccidiosis does seem a likely cause. It's possible that your bunny left the breeder healthy. These things can lie dormant and when a rabbit is stressed by something like being in a new home, the immune system can be overwhelmed and unable to fight off the parasite. Coccidiosis is very contagious, at least to other rabbits, so disinfecting is important. A 10% ammonia solution is what is used. Just make sure any other animals aren't around and rinse the surfaces thoroughly afterwards.
 
Thank you, JBun! I'm going to clean up everything of his and clean my room down very well. He was on my floor a bit so I want to be sure that everything he even MAYBE touched is disinfected. My other rabbit seems unaffected so I think if she did get it, she fought it off valiantly. She eats about 2x her body mass a day in hay and her stools seem clear and she's not giving any of the symptoms he showed. Still keeping a very close eye on her, however.

For that 10% ammonia mixture... I'm sorry for the dumb question, but how do I make that? I've never used ammonia before... So I don't even know where you buy that kind of thing! I'm assuming I dilute it 1:9 ammonia:water, though, right?

Edit: I also think he left the breeder's healthy, too. I did e-mail to let her know he passed and to make sure none of the kits he was in with were sick, too, and more of a warning than anything. I didn't want her to feel he was sick because of her!! I think you're right about the cocc. ordeal. It makes sense when I line up everything, too. It took him about 2 weeks to decline and die, which is what everything I read online says the "life cycle" is like. He had lost a lot of weight, also... I don't think there was much I could have done for him, he was just very small. He was smaller than average from what the breeder said so he may have just been a little bit sicklier than his siblings naturally. Nothing she could have done about that.

I was angry at first, but only because I was hurting. I've come to realize none of us were at fault. I guess God just needed another bun for company.
 
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I have seen ammonia for cleaning at the hardware store, sometimes the grocery store, with the cleaning products. I think just a 1:9 dilution would do it.
 
Thanks!

Is the ammonia solution the only way to clean it? I'm super worried about over exposure to it or something. I've heard really bad things and now I'm worried about using it.

Would it be possible to wash it thoroughly with dish soap and hot water then put through the hi-heat cycle & heat dry a couple times in the dish washer? Would that sanitize it?
 
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